4 ms·

If 1 in 1000 candidates would sue you, causing $100k in costs for a drawn-out legal battle, then your practice has a very expensive expected value, but in a way

by fizx 16y ago

If 1 in 1000 candidates would sue you, causing $100k in costs for a drawn-out legal battle, then your practice has a very expensive expected value, but in a way you won't notice until shit hits the proverbial fan.

oiuytgyuio 16y ago
Of course there is a flip side, if you interview 100 programmers in a small high tech town and piss off 99 of them by not even sending a 'no thanks' letter. And each of them tell all their friends that you are an a-hole, then when every potential hire in Cambridge/ NYC/ Stanford etc has heard that XYZ software are a-holes you are going to have one hell of a job hiring.
- catshirt 16y ago
  fwiw, and this is certainly not my forte, i'd rather be an asshole than a defendant in a lawsuit like that
  - oiuytgyuio 16y ago
    Depends who you are. If you're MSFT, IBM, etc then you don't even send a no thanks letter, you have nobody who isn't a certified HR person talk to a candidate and you don't allow any off the cuff remarks. The lawyer target cross section is too high. If you are a small startup in a high tech hub trying to attract people, and especially if you are in a market where the programers you reject might be future customers then you're risk is different. Companies often forget that the people they reject don't disappear. It used to be a big thing in merchant banks in the last boom to really grind and humiliate candidates - you aren't smart enough to work here etc. What they forgot is that those people went to work for companies that might need a merchant bank and that the victim is suddenly the customer.
    - philwelch 16y ago
      MSFT will actually send a rejection letter. It's predictably dull.
- brk 16y ago
  I think this is largely an imagined scenario. Even in "small towns" the developer network is not so tight that you're going to have people trying to blacklist your company on the grounds of not getting a formal rejection notice. Plus, if the 1 developer you DO hire continuously tells people it's a great company working on cool stuff, that would outweigh the negative comments from the other 99.
JoachimSchipper 16y ago
That math doesn't work. If you hire 1% and retain people for three years, you'll be sued once a year ($100 000/year) and spend e.g. 30 x $100 000 = $3 000 000 / year on salaries, before considering hiring costs. It's still expensive, but is it that ridiculous?
bajsejohannes 16y ago
Point taken, but with the given numbers it wouldn't actually be that bad. If you interview thousands of candidates, then paying an amortized $100 per candidate is not too much. If that is what it costs to give people a good impression of your company, it might well be worth it.
- gabrielroth 16y ago
  Oh god, that's the worst deal of all time. A hundred bucks for the possibility that a rejected job candidate will say something nice about the rejection process? Put that hundred bucks into making your product better so people will talk about that, or improving working conditions for your existing staff so they'll talk about that, or hiring a PR company, or any of a million things before a lawsuit.
  - whatusername 16y ago
    That's reasonably targeted advertising though. If you're hiring a C developer in SF -- there's a good chance that the person you reject has a whole bunch of friends/colleagues/acquantences that are C Devs in SF. And if you've got 1000 ex-applicants telling their colleagues - "don't interview with them" you're shooting yourself in the foot.
  - pbiggar 16y ago
    It generally costs a lot more than $100 to interview someone (especially for the good candidates who go far). If this process makes it more likely that good candidates got in touch with you, you might actually save money.

by fizx 16y ago

oiuytgyuio 16y ago

Of course there is a flip side, if you interview 100 programmers in a small high tech town and piss off 99 of them by not even sending a 'no thanks' letter. And each of them tell all their friends that you are an a-hole, then when every potential hire in Cambridge/ NYC/ Stanford etc has heard that XYZ software are a-holes you are going to have one hell of a job hiring.

catshirt 16y ago
fwiw, and this is certainly not my forte, i'd rather be an asshole than a defendant in a lawsuit like that
- oiuytgyuio 16y ago
  Depends who you are. If you're MSFT, IBM, etc then you don't even send a no thanks letter, you have nobody who isn't a certified HR person talk to a candidate and you don't allow any off the cuff remarks. The lawyer target cross section is too high. If you are a small startup in a high tech hub trying to attract people, and especially if you are in a market where the programers you reject might be future customers then you're risk is different. Companies often forget that the people they reject don't disappear. It used to be a big thing in merchant banks in the last boom to really grind and humiliate candidates - you aren't smart enough to work here etc. What they forgot is that those people went to work for companies that might need a merchant bank and that the victim is suddenly the customer.
  - philwelch 16y ago
    MSFT will actually send a rejection letter. It's predictably dull.
brk 16y ago
I think this is largely an imagined scenario. Even in "small towns" the developer network is not so tight that you're going to have people trying to blacklist your company on the grounds of not getting a formal rejection notice. Plus, if the 1 developer you DO hire continuously tells people it's a great company working on cool stuff, that would outweigh the negative comments from the other 99.

JoachimSchipper 16y ago

That math doesn't work. If you hire 1% and retain people for three years, you'll be sued once a year ($100 000/year) and spend e.g. 30 x $100 000 = $3 000 000 / year on salaries, before considering hiring costs. It's still expensive, but is it that ridiculous?

bajsejohannes 16y ago

Point taken, but with the given numbers it wouldn't actually be that bad. If you interview thousands of candidates, then paying an amortized $100 per candidate is not too much. If that is what it costs to give people a good impression of your company, it might well be worth it.

gabrielroth 16y ago
Oh god, that's the worst deal of all time. A hundred bucks for the possibility that a rejected job candidate will say something nice about the rejection process? Put that hundred bucks into making your product better so people will talk about that, or improving working conditions for your existing staff so they'll talk about that, or hiring a PR company, or any of a million things before a lawsuit.
- whatusername 16y ago
  That's reasonably targeted advertising though. If you're hiring a C developer in SF -- there's a good chance that the person you reject has a whole bunch of friends/colleagues/acquantences that are C Devs in SF. And if you've got 1000 ex-applicants telling their colleagues - "don't interview with them" you're shooting yourself in the foot.
- pbiggar 16y ago
  It generally costs a lot more than $100 to interview someone (especially for the good candidates who go far). If this process makes it more likely that good candidates got in touch with you, you might actually save money.